What freaks you out?

Probably the worst I have ran into was a LOL who's sister called EMS for her and said "my sister just needs to be checked in the ER". Went to pick her up she appeared clean, but...When she stood up...O...M...G... ...She had cervical/uterine/ovarian CA and the smell was overpowering!!!!!!!!!

Another call we had was a man had driven himself to the ER after cutting 3 of his fingers off in a circular saw. We were dispatched to go find them for reattachment. We went into the shop and I found the thumb. I turned to my partner (who had just eaten a can of BBQ Vienna Sausages) and asked him if he was still hungry...I saw those Viennas again

*shudder*

Hi - nursing student/FF/paramedic here....
I would have to say I have issues with 3 things:
-"Code Browns"
-The smell of rotting flesh
-The smell of burning flesh

Great thread, but I admit I have to stop in the midst of reading them as I feel a bit sick - this doesn't happen to me ever anymore...
That said I can't stand cleaning up dog/cat vomit - especially dog variety - my dog used to hurl and then munch it back down. Better the second time you know...
Another issue is fistula drainage. Eons ago I had a patient who had had cervical CA - over the course of her treatment and until her death she had this drainage that we were unable to stop or fix - the smell spread thorugh the hallway and the liquid would just pour out of her. No way to keep her clean and dry.
One rude nurse I used to work with would put mouthwash on a mask to go into her room. While it was nasty - she was well aware of it and it certainly didn't help her to have him react that way. Geez hope it never happens to him or anyone he loves.
Another scent that is difficult to get out of your nose is that of GVHD diarrhea (graft vs. host disease) - the color is burgundy, the texture pudding like, and the volume can be 2-3 LITERS a day.
Ok one more, large volume vag bleed smell. Another woman who had had cervical CA years prior - she had been irradiated way past what she should have been - became a para as a result and it was the previous radiation that would cause her bleeds. Never have seen or heard or smelled anything like it. She was a large gal about 250. The blood would bubble out between her legs and fill the space from her vagina to the tops of her legs and spill over - moving all the way to her feet. You could hear it like a stream over rocks - in fact that's what it looked and acted like a fast moving stream. Poor thing did die...

I forgot one story - had a patient once that developed necrotising fascialits ( sorry don't feel like looking up the correct spelling) from a spider bite. She had to have a temporary colostomy and well as half her labia removed - among other things.
Her daily dressing changes were done in the OR - yes the OR. Evenually we did them in her room with laughing gas. The abdominal wound wasn't the worst I had ever seen , it covered her abdomen from left to right and was about an 1.5 inches deep.
I was out to dinner around the time this gal was in the hospital and was telling this story ( I know- at the dinner table with 3 nurses present and 3 non nurses.) One of the people I was with and didn't know kept saying she was going to be sick - as all of us nurse types were telling our gross stories. She got up and left the table to go to the bathroom. A few moments later the waiter came to table and asked if one of our party was blond etc. etc and then said she passed out and that they had called 911. Two of us - being the nurses we were raced to her side. She had passed out cold right in the lobby in plain view of the bar - incont. - the whole nine yards. When we got there she was alert but pretending to be be out due to embarrassment. The EMT's arrived - did their thing. She was fine.
Moral of the story however is sometimes non nurses mean it when they say they are going to be sick...

Ok sorry one more - as I read it triggers the stories I had put into the dark recesses of my mind.
We give oral Busulfan as part of the conditioning treatment for a stem cell transplant. They get doses based on their height weight etc, with 2mg tablets put into capules 10mg per capusle. So the gross part is if they throw up -we have to go through the emesis and search it...yes really...search through their vomit for the small white tablets to count them so we can repeat the dose. Not a pleasant experience for either party.

I can't stand eyes either...

Either my own, or anything to do with someone elses...

I've never dealt with maggots, have dealt with just about everything else in this thread....

I'm so bad about eyes... that although i'm diabetic, i won't go get my eyes examined because i can't handle the eye drops....

Anyone know any dr's that give general anesthesia for eye drops? lol

Eyes sure are a popular choice!

Does anyone on the board work with them regularly or exclusively? Anything to say on the matter?

I can stomach ANYTHING, but watching newborn male circumcisions gets me light-headed. I'm female... but it still really gets me.

Burns also really bother me...

I feel dumb asking, but what is a code brown?